Research in rocketry has led to numerous improvements in design of rocket engines, propellants, and power. At least one problem has, however, remained. Rocket engines generate both high temperature combustion gases and an enormous amount of heat release during operation. It is a difficult engineering challenge to design materials, structures, and cooling methods to handle such extreme operating temperatures and/or to dissipate heat from lower temperature materials exposed to the hot combustion gases without loss of performance of the engine and without loss of integrity of the engine structure itself. During engine operation, the temperatures involved may reach (and potentially exceed) 3450° K. (approximately 3200° C.). Without effective cooling, many materials typically cannot be used for the engine because the operating temperatures of the engine can approach or exceed the melting point of the materials or can cause the materials to operate in a temperature regime of a material where the structural properties are poor. Furthermore, the combustion gases in the gas boundary layer that is in contact with an internal combustion chamber surface typically are more corrosive to these materials because of the existence of highly reactive gas molecules at elevated temperature compared to lower temperatures. Cooling the gas boundary layer that is in contact with an internal combustion chamber surface can decrease the concentration of reactive species and therefore reduce the chemical corrosive nature of the combustion gases. In addition, even after engine shut-down, unless the engine was sufficiently cooled during the engine operation, residual heat contained in the engine may soak-back and damage or destroy temperature sensitive components elsewhere in the engine system (e.g., actuated engine valves that have low temperature valve seats, solenoids susceptible to overheating, or electrical wiring with standard insulation that may melt at typical engine temperatures or any combination of the above). Existing cooling approaches fail to provide adequate cooling during and/or after engine operation.